


made her grave

by sincereously



Category: Psycho (1960)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21774613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincereously/pseuds/sincereously
Summary: Five worlds where Marion Crane never meets Mother, and one where she does.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	made her grave

**Author's Note:**

> In the timeline of Psycho, Marion Crane died 60 years ago today. 
> 
> Title from Robert Bloch's _Psycho_

ONE

There’s something timeless about hotels. Maybe Marion’s technically on her lunch break right now, but the scratchy coverlet she’s laying on makes it feel like an early morning when she doesn’t want to get up, and Sam’s voice rumbling behind her sounds like a radio program she turns on in the middle of restless nights. With the curtains drawn, it could be any time at all.

Sam’s playing with her hand, tracing over her fingers one by one. He’s always enjoyed doing this; he’s done it every time they’ve been together, ever since they first met on that cruise and he picked up the glove that she had dropped.

If she closes her eyes, she can pretend she’s back on that cruise. If she concentrates, she can almost imagine Sam’s hand sliding on a wedding ring.

“Stay with me, just a little longer,” he says.

She does.

When she finally comes back to the office, her coworker chatters about her husband and her mother and some flirty rich guy who, not half an hour earlier, had laid forty thousand dollars on the boss’ desk and bought a house. Marion can only notice the cheap scent of hotel sheets still clinging to her skin.

She comes home to an empty apartment and sighs at the thought of another weekend spent alone. The clock ticks loudly as she uneventfully eats and bathes and drifts off to sleep, still waiting for something to change, just a little longer.

TWO

The officer’s still following her.

Well, she doesn’t know for _sure_ that he’s following her – he may just happen to be driving on this road, too. But as she wipes her sweating palms on the steering wheel and glances in the rearview mirror, she can’t quite convince herself that he doesn’t suspect her. After everything she said when he questioned her, and the way she’d acted at the dealership too – God, she could kick herself for that.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ she thinks as she pauses at yet another red light in yet another tiny town. _Nobody innocent acts like I did._

God, is he still behind her? She can see the car, but not the driver – the windshield is just as condemningly blank and reflective as his sunglasses had been. Impulsively she makes a right turn off the highway and onto the main street of a town that must have had its heyday fifty years ago at least.

And he turns right behind her.

Her heart thrums in her ears as her hands shake on the wheel. _That was suspicious, that has to be suspicious, stupid, stupid!_

But she can recover this. There’s an intersection up ahead, if she goes just a little faster she can turn around, and then she can keep driving and everything will be fine, fine –

She doesn’t see the truck until too late.

Marion wakes up in the hospital a day later. There’s Sam and there’s Lila, with matching looks of such devastation that she almost thinks she’s died and become a ghost, except she doesn’t think being a ghost is supposed to hurt this much. She rolls her head to the side and there’s the officer looking down at her. It’s the first time she’s ever seen his eyes. She thinks the sunglasses looked kinder.

“Young lady,” he says, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”

THREE

When she finally stumbled into the hardware store not long before midnight and told Sam about the money with a bright lying smile, she had expected him to be overjoyed. When he had narrowed his eyes and grabbed her shoulders and demanded to know how she _really_ got the money, when she choked out the truth in exhausted sobs, she had expected a slap. But Sam’s reaction isn’t at either extreme. It’s more like a gradual slowing down until he’s perfectly still in front of her, anger crackling out of him in live-wire sparks.

“I don’t believe it,” he says.

Marion’s tired from driving straight from Phoenix without stopping, and she’s more scared than she’s ever been in her life, and she’s not a bit angry herself, but somehow the uncertainty of what’s about to happen is the worst feeling she’s ever had. She’s torn between wanting to get the fury out of him at once and delaying it so that it never comes at all. Tears blur her vision and slip down her face, but she doesn’t even try to wipe them away, letting her hands hang limp at her sides. “I’m sorry, Sam, I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t want it to be like this, I just thought if we could pay the debts – “

He slams his palm against the counter. “Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn you. Do you know what you did?”

_No, I didn’t,_ is what she wants to say, even though she’s thinking _yes, I did, more than you’ll ever understand._

He doesn’t wait for her answer anyway. “I can’t – Marion, I’m an honest man. If you really thought I’d take someone else’s money from you…”

Softly, she asks, “What now?”

Something in his glacier rage softens a bit, makes him more human to look at. “You can stay here tonight, if you want. After that – “ he stifles some guttural sound – “after that, I…I don’t care. I don’t care what you do.”

That’s the last thing he says to her. The next morning, as she climbs into her car and starts to make the long drive back, she stares at the last remnants of her dream in the rearview mirror for as long as she can.

Sam doesn’t look at her at all.

FOUR

_I'm lost,_ Marion refuses to think. She’s been up this way to visit Sam plenty of times, sure, but that was always in the daylight, with a map and a clear head to help her. The raindrops pound continuously against the windshield, the only noise since the last radio station turned to static about half an hour ago. She’s not sure whether the silence would be better or not.

The only landmark is a blue haze peeking through the rain, and it’s that haze that Marion follows until it turns into a sign, and from a sign turns into a motel. It’s a low, dumpy place cowering at the foot of a hill and the old Victorian-style house perched on top of it, but at least she could get directions.

She honks the horn once or twice, but no one answers. She gets out of the car and glances up to the house, where a light shines in the upper front window. The rain starts to soak through her shoes as she stares up to the window – oh, come on, there must be _someone_ up there!

Impulsiveness seems to be working for her so far. Marion huddles herself under her coat and starts to trudge her way up the hillside.

She lightly curses as her heels catch on the stairs, but eventually she makes it to the front porch. It smells musty even from the outside, like mothballs and rot and some sort of sharp chemical smell she can’t quite place. Eager to get away as soon as possible, she knocks on the door.

No answer.

Or – maybe it’s just her going crazy, but she thinks she hears a woman singing.

She has her hand on the door handle when the door flies open, making her stumble. A gangly young man comes through the door, his clothes rumpled and some sort of dark smudge on his cheeks. He nudges her backwards as he firmly shuts the door behind him.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“Good evening,” she says, because at least one of them has to remember their manners. “I was wondering if I could get a room for tonight, and since no one answered – “

“We’re closed.”

“I just thought with the sign –“

“No. We’re closed. Go somewhere else. You won’t find what you’re looking for here.” He seems to get taller as he looms closer to her. “Go on. Get out.”

As she turns back to her car, she almost thinks she can hear a woman’s laugh.

FIVE

“Sometimes we deliberately step into those traps,” Marion says. The odds of this strange boy getting what she really means are low, but he seems to understand enough, and just for tonight she doesn’t want to be afraid alone. She focuses on buttering her bread and tries hard not to look at the dead-eyed owls.

“I was born in mine,” he replies. “I don’t mind it anymore.”

“Oh, but you should! You _should_ mind it!” Because if he doesn’t, what does that say about her? Wouldn’t anything, even what she did, be better than being _stuck_?

So lost is she in her thinking that she drops a piece of the butter in her lap. She jumps in her seat, and Mr. Bates furrows his brows.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” she says hurriedly, “no, I was just a little clumsy. I’ll go get tissues, I have some in my car.”

Stepping out of that stuffy little room feels strange, sobering, like coming out of a sad movie and realizing it’s still daylight and you just cried your eyes out over something that never happened. As she roots through her glove box, she wonders if she could make some sort of excuse to go back to her room early, except…well, except she doesn’t feel right leaving Mr. Bates by himself, not when he’s gone out of his way to be so nice to her, and risked such trouble with his mother too.

She cleans off her skirt quickly and goes back into the parlor. Mr. Bates smiles and asks if she’s better, and she tries to smile back as she sits back down. _At least the food’s good,_ she thinks, taking another bite of bread. The conversation they’d been having seems to have died, but she doesn’t mind that as much as she thought she would.

There’s a buzzing noise, and for a horrible moment Marion thinks it’s coming from one of the stuffed birds. She sits frozen in her chair, still holding her buttered bread, while Mr. Bates jumps up and rushes to the door. Before he can get there, however, the officer strolls in.

Her heart stops.

It’s not the same officer that had pulled her over, which is about the only reason that she doesn’t fly out of the room then and there. This man is about forty, stocky, with close-cropped black hair and a fading sunburn on his nose. And he doesn’t even seem to notice Marion, instead turning to greet Mr. Bates.

“Sorry, son,” the newcomer says, “didn’t mean to disturb you so late. Wouldn’t have stopped at all, but I thought I saw someone out by the car in front. I take it you’re the proprietor here?”

“Yes,” Mr. Bates replies shortly, standing up and wiping his hands across his trousers.

“Just wondering if I could use your phone right quick.”

Mr. Bates is trembling even worse than Marion is. “S-s-s-sure. It’s, um, it’s right over here.” He waves in the vague direction of the phone and smiles.

For want of anything else to do, Marion takes a bite while the officer mutters into the phone, something about “no sign” and “check the back roads”. The fear in her mouth seems to curdle the butter and makes her want to throw up.

The man finally hangs up and rubs his eyes, letting out a long sigh.

Mr. Bates suddenly says, “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, a couple of guys knocked over a bank in Bakersfield. It’s possible that they’re headed up this way – neither of you have seen any suspicious characters passing through, have you?”

Both shake their heads at the same time.

“Well, let’s hope they don’t show up. Just in case they do, though, would you mind letting me hang around tonight, keep a watch out? Don’t worry – I won’t bother you two back here,” he says easily, raising and lowering his eyebrows at Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates, for his part, starts a bit, while Marion’s stomach tumbles. She pastes a smile on her face and stands up, her mind racing to figure out a nice way to _get him out of here._

“Have a nice evening, kids,” the officer says, waving a bit as he turns to go to the porch. After a moment, she hears the officer pulling up a chair outside and start whistling.

Marion doesn’t realize that she’s started moving until she stops beside Mr. Bates, both of them staring out the door.

“I – “ they both begin at the same time. He laughs a bit and waves her on to continue speaking.

“I,” she clears her throat, “I think I’ve had about enough excitement for tonight. I’ll just go to bed now. Thank you for supper.”

It’s a long, sleepless night she spends listening to the officer pace outside. He leaves just before dawn, as Mr. Bates leaves a tray of toast just outside her door. She only catches a glimpse of Mr. Bates as he walks back up to the house, but he doesn't look like he slept any better than she did. 

+1

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

She’s naked and bloody, and there’s a dead man lying in the tub, and oh God, she just repented of being a thief, she didn’t want to be a murderer. 

She slides down the bathroom door, ignoring a splinter that scratches her back. Maybe it’ll make her bleed, but she already has cuts on her arms and at this point she doesn’t even know if she wants to know how bad they are. She buries her face in her hands and curls up on the linoleum.

_This isn’t real. I’m going to wake up._

The realization that this _is_ real is dizzying, and she crawls over to the toilet just before she retches. She’s hyper-sensitive to the smooth porcelain on her forehead and the slight crack of the linoleum under her knee and the pattering of the shower on the tub. She’d scream if she thought she would ever stop.

It takes a few shaky breaths before she had the presence of mind to turn off the shower. She catches the last of the water in her mouth and swallows, wincing at the taste.

It’s only then that she can look at the body. Mr. Bates’ face is caked with makeup and twisted into a grimace. The knife sticks out between two buttons on his dress, right where his heart should be. His eyes are as glassy as those of his stuffed birds, and Marion can only look at them a moment before she doubles up over the toilet again.

“Why,” she croaks, but there are too many ways to end that sentence. Why did he come here? Why is he dressed like that? Why did he try to…to…

It doesn’t matter, now.

She has to hurry, she realizes as she wraps a towel tight around her bleeding arm. His mother might be asleep right now, but maybe she’s not, and if she isn’t she’ll soon realize that her son isn’t returning. For a second she thinks about taking the knife and – but she immediately stops that idea. She can’t kill a sick old woman. It’ll be a miracle if she can deal with the _first_ murder.

She has no idea where to leave the body, so it – he - _it_ will stay here. She doesn’t think she could lift it even if she wanted. Her muscles feel like water, and her left bicep is bleeding worryingly though her towel. Oddly enough, she doesn’t really feel any pain. She doesn’t really feel anything, now that the initial panic has started to go. Something icily clear is beginning to take hold of her mind, just as it had when she took the money.

So the body will stay. That is a fact. That decided, the only thing she can do now is clean. She pulls the remaining towels out, wets them, and starts to brush the towels over every surface she thinks she might have touched and every surface that’s been touched by blood. She does her best not to look at the corpse, but every time she glimpses it, she starts scrubbing faster.

She puts off wiping down the knife handle until the end and is almost proud of herself when she doesn’t throw up this time. The last of the bread and milk came up a few minutes ago, anyway. It’s for the better that there’s no trace of him on her.

Is the room clean enough? She’s not sure. She’s not sure she’ll be ever be sure of anything again. 

Her fingers shake so hard as she dresses that she eventually gives up on most of the buttons, and she drops an earring by the bed and almost forgets to grab it. The towels end up wrapped in the shower curtain and stuffed in her trunk; she’ll dump them somewhere on the road back to Phoenix. The dawn hasn’t yet broken as she looks over the room one last time. It’s done. Her room is clean, her hands are clean, none of this ever happened, not to a girl like her.

She only glances at the house once, but it’s as dark and silent as a tombstone. _Tomorrow she’ll know that her son is dead,_ Marion thinks, and before she has to think about that any longer she climbs into her car and drives away.

Sam brings it up a few weeks later. She’s lying with him in his bed at the hardware store as the New Year’s fireworks are still going off outside, the explosions temporarily overpowering the sound of the pattering rain on the roof. He’s playing with her fingers again.

“A lot can change in a year,” he says, “even in Fairvale.”

_A lot can change even sooner. And the worst part is, you’re not even sure what you could have done differently until it’s too late._

“Although a lot of times it’s better when it doesn’t change,” Sam rumbles on. “The last big thing that happened – did I ever tell you what happened at the old Bates place?” Apparently, the sheriff had gone out to investigate complaints of a terrible smell and found the body of Norman Bates, left in a shower and dressed in his mother’s clothes.

“His mother must be devastated,” Marion says softly.

“His mother? She’s been dead for years.”

“But – “ Marion shuts up at Sam’s puzzled smile and furrowed brow. Her heart begins to return to its normal beat as he curls up beside her and kisses her gently. Marion almost hopes that the nightmares will leave her alone tonight.

But as she drifts off to sleep, all she can think of is the glint of a knife in a shower.


End file.
